70s Genres

I didn't think getting discussion going on this would be like pulling teeth! Has anyone read This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin? He first had a career in the music business in the 80s as a session musician, engineer and producer before becoming a neuroscientist. I was drawn to this book because its overall thesis is that our brains are hardwired for music even more so than language.

Near the end he makes some interesting observations related to simplicity versus complexity. Most people generally like music that strikes the right balance between simplicity and complexity. When music is too simple, it's too predictable. At a certain age, kids outgrow simple nursery rhymes and seek more complex music, just like they lose interest in the game tic-tac-toe and move on to checkers, chess, go, xiangqi, mahjong, etc. On the other hand, music that is too complex can be perceived as too unpredictable, not grounded in anything familiar, a schema. Additionally, consonance is usually preferred over dissonance, but an appreciation of dissonance is sometimes learned, though people differ in how much dissonance they can tolerate.

Levitin's take on how our brains process "goove:"

"Far more than language, music taps into primitive brain structures involved with motivation, reward and emotion. Whether it is the first few hits of the cowbell ["I got the fever, and the only cure is more cowbell!"] on "Honkey Tonk Women," or the first few notes of "Sheherazade," computational systems in the brain synchronize neural oscillators with the pulse of the music, and begin to predict when the next strong beat will occur. As the music unfolds, the brain constantly updates its estimates of whn new beats will occur, and takes satisfaction in matching a mental beat with a real-in-the-world one, and takes delight when a skillful musician violates that expectation in an interesting way. Music breathes, speeds up, and slows down just as the real world does, and our cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized."

"The story of your brain on music is the story of an exquisite orchestration of brain regions, involving both the oldest and newest parts of the human brain, and regions as far apart as the cerebellum in the back of the head and the frontal lobes just behind your eyes. It involves a precision choreography of neurochemical release and uptake between logical prediction systems and emotional reward systems. When we love a piece of music, it reminds us of other music we have heard, and it activates memory traces of emotional times in our lives. Your brain on music is all about...connections."

Thinking about the way the brain processes music brings up many fascinating questions on how we categorize and group music together. I think the seemingly mundane question of what's art rock versus prog has plenty of potential. Whereas prog leans towards complexity, often modeling itself on classical music, perhaps art rock can be distinguished as being relatively more simple, yet also playing more with dissonance and unfamiliar modes, chord progressions and unusual timbres from experimental instruments and electronics?

How does one distinguish glam from power pop? Glam seems to more often play with proto-metal guitar sounds while still staying close to sixties melodic pop of the Beatles, just as Badfinger, the Raspberries and Cheap Trick. To one unfamiliar with both forms, it may be impossible to tell the difference, because the genres are really more related to culture and geography.

I think even to people very familiar w/the music, genres still have a lot to do w/non musical factors like culture and demographics. Furthermore, I think the individual need/ability/preference to classify music into genres at all varies a great deal, so one person's prog might encompass a huge array of bands, while another's might limit to very specific criteria. It could be an interesting discussion between two people as to the nature of their boundaries for this classification or that...or not. Personally, I'm a bit wary pinning down genres too closely, because to me, a "genre" is always temporary, always fuzzy, and the moment it becomes exclusive is the same moment I stop believing in it (or disengage somewhat from a discussion about it). It's nothing more than a mental tag, and carrying an unofficial "-ish" suffix for every term I use. I totally agree there is a quality about our brains and the chemicals inside them that causes us to classify (and also believe we as a species reap many rewards because of it), but at no point do I believe in a fool proof way of getting everyone to agree on anything at any particular point. And somehow I wonder why my gf keeps calling me a nihilist. ;)